Obama '08?

Gee, what a pity. Bush and company left our country is such great financial, military, health, etc., shape, and now Obama and company comes along to mess things up. A third term for Bush might have been in order.

When you read the ridiculous assertions of H2O, one should keep the following saying in mind.


"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
William G. McAdoo

It seems a few short days ago, the spread was +9 for Obama, but it has shrunk to "0" for the first time, "0" being the first time since the election in the Rasmussen Poll. This from I think around +25 at inauguration less than 5 months ago.

Are you ever going to admit that this 'strongly approve v. strongly disapprove' chart is bullshit, and doesn't reflect his actual approval ratings, Okie? It's meaningless, as this numbers fluctuate greatly while his overall approval numbers remain relatively steady.

Cycloptichorn

Tell Rasmussen its BS, cyclops, as they have as good or better track record at polling as other organizations. And if you don't like the + or - tracking, Rasmussen has Obama at only 54% approval.

"Overall, 54% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance so far."

Ras is out of line with every other pollster out there, likely due to their inherent Republican bias.

Here is an average of all polls taken on presidential approval -



You will note the stability in Obama's approval ratings.

Cycloptichorn

A couple of points, cyclops, you are correct, his approval rating has held up pretty well, but it still is suffereing a general slight decline. Also, the lines on your graph probably include several polls that really are not very credible. I consider Rasmussen and possibly a handful of other foremost polling organizations to be more credible than others. I think you are wrong to dismiss Rasmussen.

I'm sure you do consider the pollster who confirms your worldview to be the most accurate. What about that is supposed to be shocking to me?

If you agree that his ratings are holding up well, why do you bother posting that Ras Strong approve - strong disapprove graph? You know very well that it is not indicative of anything at all, other than weekly fluctuations in the numbers.

Cycloptichorn

I post the numbers because I think they show pertinent sentiment out here. I grant you there is some statistical noise in the numbers day to day, probably, but the numbers are pertinent when it hits zero for the first time. Of course, tomorrow it could go +, but eventually I think it will go to the minus side of the graph, simply because I do not think Obama's policies will work.

Examinations of data which are not statistically valid do not become statistically valid simply because they hit a magic point. I think comparisons of the overall approval ratings are a much better method, for they are not near as susceptible to daily noise as the ones you are posting.

Is Ras using single-day numbers, or a 3-day rolling average? I don't really trust the validity of single-day polls to the same degree as averaged ones; the highs and lows tend to be magnified. For example, a few days ago, Obama was at +10 or so on that little graph; do you really think 10% of Americans and suddenly changing their minds back and forth about Obama every week? No.

Cycloptichorn

Wait. I thought approval ratings have nothing to do with how well a President is doing.

Isn't that what we heard when Bush's numbers were in the tank?

Americans are boycotting GM and Chrysler for the single reason that
they can't stomach Obama owning and running once private companies.

If only they had gone bankrupt right away, without the government trying to save them, then Americans wouldn't have to boycott them now.

Exactly what I was about to say!

Cycloptichorn

PRUDEN: 'Inner Muslim' at work in Cairo
By Wesley Pruden (Contact) | Friday, June 5, 2009


OPINION/ANALYSIS:
Now it's on to Normandy, to apologize to the Germans. It's the least an American president can do after the way the Allied armies left so much of Europe in rubble. There's a lot of groveling to do for what America accomplished in the Pacific, too.

This prospect should appeal to Barack Obama, who relishes the role of Apologizer-in-Chief. Apologizing for manifold sins against civilization is not always easy, but it's simple enough: "Blame America First." You just open a vein and let it flow. In Cairo, Mr. Obama opened an artery.

America, unlike the president, is guilty of hubris, arrogance and cant. All that must change. "Change" is what the smooth-talking Chicago messiah says he is all about. "Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail," he told the Muslim elites Thursday at Cairo U. "So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it." It's not "a world order" that elevates America, but events. No other country is as generous, as forgiving, as willing to sacrifice blood and bone when the world calls for help. If not America, who? Hasn't the president heard?

Big talkers don't know when to stop when they're on a rhetorical roll because they can't remember which facts are actually facts and which "facts" they're making up. Mr. Obama even attributed the Golden Rule, from the teachings of Christ, to "every religion." In an interview before the Cairo speech, he called the United States one of "the largest Muslim countries," based on its Muslim population, and he later put the number of Muslims in America at 7 million, more than even most Islamic advocacy groups claim. The most reliable estimate, by the nonpartisan Pew research organization, is 1.8 million. That would make the United States the 48th "largest" Muslim nation, just behind Montenegro. Mr. Obama often has trouble with numbers, big and small; he once boasted of having campaigned in 57 states.

Mr. Obama described himself as "a Christian, but," and offered a hymn to the Muslim roots he insisted during the late presidential campaign he didn't have. He invoked his middle name, "Hussein," as evidence that he was one of "them." The Obama campaign insisted last year that anyone who uses the middle name was playing with racism.

He told the Cairo audience that "to move forward we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts," but he wasted the opportunity to forcefully instruct Muslims that respect and appreciation must be mutual. While conceding the mote in American eyes, he said almost nothing about the beam that blinds Muslim eyes. He enumerated the "sources of tension" between Islamic countries and the West and never mentioned terrorism. He chided the West for its harsh view of Islamic treatment of women - "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal" - and suggested that denying education to women is the gravest Muslim sin against women. He could have denounced "honor killings," forced marriages and how women in Muslim countries are flogged on the pretext of minuscule violations of eighth-century Sharia law.

But it was more fun to fish for applause by berating America and throwing rocks at Israel. "Let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own." Israel, he said, must "live up to its obligations," but he had hardly a word of rebuke for the long record of broken Palestinian promises. It was a remarkable insult to an absent ally, delivered to the applause of Israel's sworn enemies.

Mr. Obama's revelation of his "inner Muslim" in Cairo reveals much about who he is. He is our first president without an instinctive appreciation of the culture, history, tradition, common law and literature whence America sprang. The genetic imprint writ large in his 43 predecessors is missing from the Obama DNA. He no doubt meant no offense in returning that bust of Churchill ("Who he?") or imagining that a DVD of American movies was appropriate in an exchange of state gifts with Gordon Brown. Nor did he likely understand why it was an offense against history (and good manners) to agree to the exclusion of the Queen from Saturday's commemoration of the Anglo-American liberation of France. Kenya simply routed Kansas.

The great Cairo grovel accomplished nothing beyond the humiliation of the president and the embarrassment of his constituents, few of whom share his need to put America on its knees before its enemies. No president before him has ever shamed us so. We must never forget it.

• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

Yaknow, out of all the people who oppose Obama on A2K, you in particular - there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that you are a racist, based on the comments you have made during the election and since then.

You went from being one of the biggest bashers of the Republican party, to bashing Obama - even though his policies are substantially the same as Clinton's, who you supported, IIRC. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Cycloptichorn

PrezBO and his cabinet

Whatever Obama touches is tainted.

So you're saying that it would have been better if GM and Chrysler had collapsed last year than being "touched" by Obama now?

Or what else are you suggesting?

Is English not a language you are familiar with?

Are you not able to understand how a free market works?